


To bring him back

by Laura_Sinele



Series: Fictober 2019 drabbles [19]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Bucky Barnes Remembers, Canon Divergence - Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Implied Relationships, Light Angst, M/M, Memory Loss, Past Relationship(s), Steve Rogers Feels, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-25
Updated: 2019-10-25
Packaged: 2021-01-03 03:03:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21172355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laura_Sinele/pseuds/Laura_Sinele
Summary: Steve Rogers won't give up in making the Winter Soldier remember he once was Bucky Barnes.





	To bring him back

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Fictober19 prompt 21: "Change is annoyingly difficult"
> 
> I've overlooked the canon from Winter Soldier onward. In this AU there's a Civil War but everybody comes to senses, there's no Thanos menace and the logical conclusion to finding a super soldier other than the Cap is -duh- recruiting him.

It comes a time in one’s life when, after being confronted with the impossible enough times, nothing is impossible anymore. 

Steve Rogers had faced enough impossibles to believe almost anything. That’s why he didn’t second-guess much his gut when it jolted at the close sight of the ultimate assassin’s eyes. He could have sworn that was Bucky’s brow, Bucky’s nose bridge, Bucky’s determined gaze. He just needed to confirm with some authority that whatever unbelievable lost link in this narrative was a reality. Time travel, cloning, more super-soldier serum… He didn’t even questioned why his childhood friend, his best and only true friend, was trying to kill him. There sure must have been a reasonable explanation for it. Like extraterrestrial forces. Or fairies. 

The following months of fights and disagreement, of conspiracies and treason, were just a blur. Nothing compared to the fact that Bucky was alive. Nothing as hurtful as the fact that his childhood friend, his best and only true friend, didn’t remember him. Nothing as plunging as the realisation that this was the proverbial end of the line. Again. 

In the end, at a great cost, the Avengers assembled anew, and they took Bucky in. Better with them than against them, was the reasoning behind his recruitment. He underwent a gruelling neuro-psychological procedure to get rid of each and every trigger mechanism. The matter of getting his pre-Winter Soldier memories back was never risen. When Steve asked, everybody from SHIELD’s medical staff to Banner and even Loki and Dr. Strange told him it could happen or not, but there wasn’t a way to bring them back on purpose. As knowledgeable as they all were in their own fields, the human mind, they said, was still one of the greatest mysteries of the universe. 

The Avenger known as Winter Soldier was a quiet superhuman with an enhanced metal arm. His face and voice and date of birth were those of Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, declared missing in action during a Howling Commandos mission against HYDRA. There’s where any similarity ended. Where Bucky had been good-humored, the Winter Soldier was brooding. Where Bucky had been extroverted and easy-going, the Winter Soldier kept to himself and was always one fraction of a step away of inabiliting the closest menace. Where there used to be that famous charming smile of Bucky, the Winter Soldier’s lips where always pressed thin, downcast, and his gaze was the closest thing to the void Steve could imagine. 

After all, the end of the line had arrived when Bucky fell of that moving train and Steve failed to catch him. There was no impossible turned true for them. His childhood friend, his best and only true friend, was gone. 

The world underwent several catastrophes, most of which never made the public eye, a handful of them solved without even leaving the Avengers headquarters. Old frictions smoothed, new friendships were born. Steve only looked longingly at the Winter Soldier every now and then, trying to find any sign of old Bucky’s personality resurfacing. It was an afterthought now. Those who had been worried for him and called it obsession in the first weeks didn’t even noticed.

The first time the Winter Soldier smiled, Steve dropped his mug of coffee. He said it was lack of sleep and everyone believed him. 

It wasn’t a big smile. His face relaxed for a moment and the corners of his lips perked up slightly. Steve had made a joke that he thought no-one would get when they’d asked him about being in “active service”. They meant literally, as in the military, but he made a sexual innuendo, because in his time “active service” could mean being sexually active. He said it rejoicing in the fact that no-one would get it and he would left them wondering once more about his sex life. But Bucky, no, the Winter Soldier, had smiled imperceptibly as he kept his head down, studying the history of the decades he had missed. 

Wanda catched the mug before it shattered against the floor, Steve made his lame excuse about not sleeping enough, retrieved his coffee and headed to his bedroom to try and calm down. It had been just a smile. A smile because of a joke that could have been funny in the forties. A joke he did several times with the Howling Commandos. “I’ve never been officially in active service in my whole life”. It could mean anything and it was funny because, literally, it was true but, figuratively, it left them wondering. But the Winter Soldier surely didn’t remember that. He probably smiled because that bit of slang was in his vocabulary, nothing more. Bucky was gone. He was the Winter Soldier now. 

Steve wasn’t sure if he needed a nap or a 50 miles sprint, now. He took his sweatpants off and put on a pair of rated jeans and a zipped hoodie over his plain white tee. He put on his baseball cap and fake glasses and headed out, to his exhibit. That, he reminded himself, was the only place where he could see Bucky, the real one. He looked more alive in the black and white footage than the Winter Soldier had ever managed to look in the real world. Now Steve needed to punch something, since there was no one left of those who did that to Bucky. The ones that killed Bucky. The ones creating an impossible in this stupid world where everything could be but this. It was a too loud world, too bright, too fast. Steve needed some respite. Maybe sleep would have been a better idea.

\--

He couldn’t help but try, because of course he couldn’t. He had never been known for dropping things. He had been known for following his gut and ending up being right. So he kept peppering his speeches and chats with subtle hints to the thirties and forties in Brooklyn. Very specific things that only someone who’d been there would get, but not as singular as to catch the other Avenger’s attention. 

The Winter Soldier got them all. And Steve emboldened with each smirk, huff and glance. They were all very subtle and never led to a meaningful conversation. The Winter Soldier’s acknowledgement of Steve’s strategy finished in the non verbal hints of getting the reference. Tony Stark’s acknowledgement of Steve’s strategy was more direct. 

“A word, Cap”, said Tony after a briefing. When everybody left the room to their assignments, Steve cocked his head and waited for Tony to say something. “You know I am not against him anymore, do you?”

Steve rolled his eyes.   
“Tony…”

“Because I don’t. I swear, I learnt. We all learnt. He was a problem, until we realised he was a victim, and now he is a very valuable asset”

“What’s your point?”

Tony sighed through his nose while pursing his lips and weighing Steve with a stare. 

“I wouldn’t want him to become a liability”.

Steve felt the all anger of their Civil War creep in and zero into Tony’s solar plexus. He managed to refrain but he wasn’t amiable when he spoke. 

“Again, what’s your point?”

“I know what you are doing. I don’t think anybody else has, I just happen to pay a lot of attention to you. Well, probably Nat knows too, because she’s rolled her eyes at me a couple of times when you drop…”

“Okay, enough”. Steve knew better that denying it, but that didn’t mean he was willing to discuss it. “Your advice is noted. I won’t let it become a liability, but I won’t let it go either, because if there is a single chance to bring him back I will try. I won’t put it before the Avengers or the world’s safety, but will keep trying until he’s back or until one of us dies, whatever happens first”.

When Tony spoke he did it softly, measuring his words, the ghost of their past enmity very much present.

“Captain. Bucky is gone. You mourned him. If he ever comes back, that’s great, but chances are he won’t. And we cannot afford to have the greatest strategic mind of the planet distracted with psychological games and grief. It wouldn’t be betrayal if you let it go”

“It would”, he said defiantly, before speaking more calmly: “Advice noted, Stark. I will bear it in mind, I promise. You don’t have to worry”.

\--

It had been a long time since Steve had gotten in the exhibition outside opening hours. Still, the guard tipped his cap as he opened the door for him.

“Long time no see, Captain”

“Been busy”, he smiled. “How are things, Alan?”

“Great as usual. You’ve got company by the way”, added Alan when Steve was about to round the corner. He stopped on his tracks to ask who, a cautious, calculating expression on his face, but then he saw the Winter Soldier standing in front of one of the panels. He turned his head and saluted, wearing that blank expression of his.

Steve approached him and stood by his side for a while. When the video on the screen had finished a loop, Steve talked in a low voice:

“Never took you for a nostalgic”.

The Winter Soldier hummed and turned to Steve:

“Me or your good ol’ pal Bucky?”

Steve looked at him not really sure if that was a genuine question, and accusation a retort or what in hell. The Winter Soldier walked to the next panel and Steve followed him.

“I come here every now and then. I try to make sure we won’t meet, because I don’t want to disturb you. I know this has some importance for you”.

“It has. I appreciate the thought”. And then, after hesitating for a while, he added: “Why do you come?”

The Winter Soldier shrugged.

“To see if it all comes back. It never does though”.

Steve’s face fell and the Winter Soldier noticed. He continued, this time looking at Steve.

“I come here after certain dreams or flashes. I don’t remember much aside from my.. HYDRA missions. And some unconnected things. More sensations than images or memories. Sometimes I dream a game of throw in an alley. Sometimes it’s me lying on a couch, looking at a chapped ceiling. A fan is buzzing and someone is drawing. I can hear the pencil against the paper and I can feel boredom and frustration, because I want them to stop and go play. I remember some things from the war too. As I said, only flashes. I come here and look at the pictures and try to find some link between them”.

Steve breathing was heavy and his jaw was set without him even realizing. He made himself look away from the Winter Soldier and into Bucky’s mugshot in the panel. Their expressions were so different it could have been an entirely different face. 

“Why haven’t you come to me? I could help you figure out those memories. We were joined at the hip, I probably remember those moments too. If I had known you were starting to remember I’d probably…”

“Change…” interrupted the Winter Soldier in his low monotone voice, “is annoyingly difficult. Specially when your mind has been set to a single track and you were excellent at it. It feels slow. It feels like disappointment. I don’t really remember you. I know we were good friends because I’ve been told, and I’ve read here”, he said nodding towards the panel in front of them, “but I don’t know why. I don’t know what happened. And I see what you do to try and bring this guy back, and the faces you make when I just don’t react. I didn’t want to give you false hopes in case he never really comes back. I know you must miss him a lot”.

“Oh, yeah? How would you know that?”, asked Steve with a sad laugh. The Winter Soldier turned his back to the panel, sighed and put his hands in his pockets. 

“There’s this feeling whenever I look at you. Like I want to punch you and kiss you at the same time. And during missions, there’s this need to protect you at all costs, as if you weren’t a virtually immortal super soldier. I don’t know where it comes from, but I know it’s Bucky’s”.

Steve looked at him, mouth hanging slightly. The Winter Soldier sighed again, turned his face to Steve and tried a small, apologetic smile. 

“That’s how I know, pal. He misses you too”.

Steve watched the Winter Soldier walk down the hall towards the exit. He turned back to the panel and Bucky’s mugshot. And he saw the very same smile the Winter Soldier had just given him. Steve smiled in return. It wasn’t a sad or unrealistically hopeful smile. It was the smile that had always made his way to his lips whenever Bucky was around. The one with which he said “hello” to him, and “goodbye”. The one with which he said “thank you”, “I’m sorry” or “I’m glad you’re here”. The one that loudly stated “I love you” for nobody to hear but his childhood friend, his best and only true friend. And he might be getting the echoes of it.


End file.
